Cambodia - Phnom Penh

17 - 19 June '08

Our 6 hour bus journey from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh was a smooth one. However, half way through, we stopped within the Kom Pot province for lunch where a few locals on board picked up some delicacies for the trip - fried, herbed crickets, spiders and beetles. The constant sound of crunching ensued for the remainder of the trip... cringe! We stayed in an area by the river, where there were few guesthouses but many local hangouts. We had hit the jackpot... with bars like Red Fox, Pussy Cat and 69, we couldn't go wrong :-) Later that evening, we dined at "Happy Herbs Pizza" - as the name implies, the pizzas came with special ingredients ('a la ganja'). Whilst Preya struggled to feel the effects, Yatin was certainly a happy chappy.

The next day was undoubtedly our most emotionally intense experience so far. We rose early and found a young tuk-tuk driver (called Umsy) to take us to the Killing Fields. Enroute, Umsy offered to take us to a shooting range... and naturally we accepted. Here, we bought ourselves a $40 cartridge of bullets and experienced first hand what it was like to pull the trigger of an AK-47. The gun was heavy... the shot blast was immensely loud... and the backfire forceful (unfortunately, they had run out of grenades!). After a further 20km of dusty roads, we arrived at the Killing Fields of Choeng Ek. It was naturally peaceful, and a large white memorial which housed the skull and bones of many thousands of victims, featured prominently in the grounds. As we visited the mass graveyards and locations of torture sheds, we stumbled across bone fragments and items of clothing that had yet to be unearthed - this was our first taste of the heinous crimes of the Khmer Rouge that had existed only 30 years ago (For those of you who don't know, the Khmer Rouge were a Communist group that were led by an individual called Pol Pot - they savaged and murdered millions of Cambodian people... even those that merely wore glasses or spoke another language... they wanted to create a society of surpressed peasant workers... there were noticeably fewer old people about because of this very reason). Umsy explained to us how his uncle had managed to escape from this very place before having to survive on insects, water lilies and the like for one year until the Pol Pot reign had ended. Lost for words, we continued our journey onto S21 (Tuol Sleung) - a former school turned into prison camp. The site was once again very disturbing, filled with torture chambers and shackled cells. Distressing images and photos of the victims were plastered across the building site. Feeling quite drained, we relaxed for the rest of the evening with some wine and good food.

Our final day in Phnom Penh, and Cambodia, was spent drinking and reading by the river. Next stop... Chiang Mai... Thailand.